Hi everybody!
Here are the brief results from the ‘Green Light Nationals’ at Santa Pod last weekend, 21st & 22nd August.
The Wild Bunch had a small but excellent field of 5 cars participating in the event. We had 4 qualifying runs scheduled for Saturday, but unfortunately the weather had other ideas! There were several rain delays, but finally we got a round of qualifying in at around 1:30pm. Four of the teams safely qualified then. It then rained on and off in the afternoon, and though the track crew tried hard to keep as much racing as possible going, the officials had to call the day off at about 4:30pm. By then 5 classes had still not completed their only qualifier! There was a massive thunderstorm overnight so this delayed the start of racing Sunday! The qualifying cycle was completed and eliminations started. There were a few minor delays but then the Wild Bunch got the first round, our Semi-finals just after 2:30pm! The track crew once again worked hard throughout the day and battled with more showers from 3:30pm! Racing resumed again about quarter to 6, after a lot of hard work from the crew, and a lot of finger crossing! The classes were rushing through and we had the Final at 7:25pm!! We were one of only 5 classes who were able to complete our eliminations! Huge thanks to all the marshals and officials and everyone at Santa Pod for all their massive hard work again this weekend, which enabled so much racing to take place, against the weather odds!! Fair play to them all!
The Top 4 winners were:
1st Place: Mark Coulsell in ‘Ballbreaker’
2nd Place: Andy Clifford in ‘Snake Eyes’
3rd Place: Phil James in ‘Rampage’ by being closest to Dial of Semi-final Runners up (.045 vs .055 off)
4th Place: Rob Brown in ‘Rebel’
The Spot Prizes were:
- #1 Qualifier: Mark Coulsell in ‘Ballbreaker’ .005 off (looking back, this is 1 thousandth better than when he was #1 Qualifier at the last ‘Green Light Nationals’ in 2019!!!)
- Best Reaction (eliminations): Mark Coulsell in ‘Ballbreaker’ .150 (also had the second best RT at .154!)
- Closest to Dial-in (eliminations): Andy Clifford in ‘Snake Eyes’ .042 off (in the Semis)
The full line-up was:
· Phil James in ‘Rampage’ (Ably crewed by wife Anna and sister Alison on Saturday, with Matt joining in on Sunday; Phil made a good solid pass to qualify #2 with a 9.529 on a 9.49 Dial; he then ran a 9.505 on a 9.46 in the Semis, just losing out by .0029 in a great race with Andy!! He was closer to dial than Rob who was in the other Semi, so he earns 3rd place, and the exciting season-long battle between those 2 teams continues!!)
· Rob Brown in ‘Rebel’ (Rob ran a good 8.581 at 155mph on an 8.54 Dial to qualify in 3rd place; he had a great race with Mark in the Semis, recording an 8.615 on an 8.56 Dial, and earning a 4th place finish; great to see the lads consistently in the Top 4 again this year!)
· Mark Coulsell in ‘Ballbreaker’ (Another great #1 qualifying pass, with an 8.255 on an 8.25, straight off the trailer! Mark recorded his PB speed to boot! He won his Semi-final matchup with Rob on a holeshot with a slowing 8.323 on the 8.25 Dial; he then won the Final against Andy who had a problem, and slowed to an 8.477 on the 8.25 Dial; Congrats on another great event win Mark!!)
· Andy Clifford in ‘Snake Eyes’ (Andy made a solid pass of 9.510 on an 8.94 dial to qualify 4th on Saturday; he then ran an excellent 9.042 on a 9.00 in the very close race with Phil in the Semi-final, where he recorded his first ever 150mph pass, and made the Final! Unfortunately he had an issue after launch and slowed to a 15 second pass, so hope all is okay with the car. Great to see him make the Final and a magic speed! Congrats Andy and all the Cliffords!!)
· Bob Hawkins in ‘Time Traveller II’ (We are all absolutely gutted for Bob and team, as they had hoped to cure their problems from previous events, running a new mag to boot, but sadly the car lost fire when Bob went forward after the burnout in the qualifying round! A massive shame after all their efforts! Hopefully they can trace the issue and Bob will be back out running 6’s at over 200mph soon! Best of luck Bob! We are all willing you on!)
Also Congratulations to Harley Coulsell for qualifying #1 in Junior Dragster with an .009 RT in the only qualifier to be held!! Brilliant Harley! Well done to Ada Cassisi too, who tried so hard and went red by just .010! So close!! You’ll do it next time Ada!
The PB’s this weekend were:
· Mark Coulsell in ‘Ballbreaker’ 161.92 mph (a brilliant run overall, with the 8.255!)
· Andy Clifford in ‘Snake Eyes’ 154.21 mph (his first time over 150mph! Congrats Andy!! Great run!)
Highlights of the weekend were our great teams who stuck it all out through all the weather delays and also getting the eliminations completed to the Final! A great show by the Wild Bunch!!
Massive thanks again to everyone at Santa Pod for all their hard work as always! Well done to all the Wild Bunch teams! You all did yourselves proud yet again!
The biggest change with the results from this weekend is that Mark Coulsell has now taken the lead in the Springbridge MSUK Challenge and the SPRC Championship for Wild Bunch!! Mark has a lead of less than one round of racing over Rob & Pete in these Series who in turn have less than one round of racing lead over Phil, with one event to go, so all very close with those 3 teams! Andy has moved up from 6th place to 4th place in the Springbridge and SPRC Series! Mark has also rocketed from 11th place in the Spirit of Nostalgia Challenge all the way up to 3rd place, with 2 more events to go!!!! Well done Mark and the whole LFR team!! Phil is still leading this Series and Rob & Pete are 2nd. Andy Clifford has moved up from 18th in this Series to 8th!! Well done Andy!
We hope to see an even bigger field for the MSUK final event on 25th & 26th September!! This is just one week after the super Hot Rod Drags which will see the Final of the Roy Wilding Nostalgia Race Cars Series and the penultimate round of the Wild Bunch Series and Spirit of Nostalgia Series!! Can’t wait!
All the best
Claire
